Airport screeners find blade in man's shoe

Dec 23, 2004 | Honolulu -- A 33-year-old Virginia man was in federal custody after airport screeners found a box-cutter blade glued into the sole of his shoe.

Authorities said Randall Rustick of Fairfax, Va., was en route to Kauai with his wife and four children at about 10:45 a.m. at Honolulu Airport's Interisland Terminal Tuesday and had placed his black dress shoes in a plastic bin for screening.

A screener spotted a small metal object in the left shoe and alerted a supervisor and law enforcement to take a closer look.

"When they saw the image on the screen, they recognized that there was some sort of object concealed in his shoe," said Sidney Hayakawa, Transportation Security Administration chief in Honolulu.

Rustick was then taken to the side of the passenger line and the shoe was broken open to reveal a blade about 4 inches long in the inner sole, Hayakawa said.

Hayakawa said Wednesday that he could not divulge the reason Rustick gave for having the blade.

"It's under investigation right now. So, we can't reveal what he said," Hayakawa said.

Rustick was taken into custody without resistance and was being held at the Federal Detention Center near the airport. He was to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court Wednesday afternoon, court officials said.

Hayakawa said Rustick's wife said the family was on vacation and headed to visit family on Kauai.

"That's what we've been told but I don't know how true that is or how accurate," he said.

Honolulu Airport screeners have found blades before but this case is different because the blade was concealed, which Hayakawa said he thought "shows an intent."

"We've detected box-cutters, razors, knives and stuff but not concealed like this. So this is a first time for us in terms of real concealment," Hayakawa said.

But Nico Melendez, a Los Angeles-based spokesman for the TSA, said that deliberately concealed weapons aren't uncommon. Over the Thanksgiving holiday a 16-year-old boy in Phoenix was found to have hidden a knife in the sole of his shoe, he said.

"How often does it happen? Frequently," Melendez said.

Such cases demonstrate to the flying public why the TSA has regulations, such as the sometimes criticized policy requiring passengers to remove their shoes, Melendez said.

"There are people out there that want to introduce prohibited and deadly items into the fuselage of an aircraft. And we are charged with finding them and we're doing that," Melendez said.

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